Mobile broadcast networks have been designed to deliver media content, to wireless communication devices, such as cellular telephones and the like. Mobile broadcast networks are especially suited for delivering primary programming content interspersed with secondary or advertising media content. Secondary content may be referred to as advertisements or ads.
Mobile broadcast networks may utilize broadcast or multicast delivery systems transmit content to multiple recipients at the same time. Examples of mobile broadcast systems include FLO, DVB-H, 1Seg, and CDMA2000 Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS). Some of these systems also employ a unicast delivery system, such as CDMA or GSM based system as a supplemental communication system to such tasks as subscriptions and encryption key distribution.
For convenience and clarity, unicast as used herein refers to sending information packets to a single destination. While such transmissions may be picked up by multiple receivers, only the addressed receiver digests the data. Physically, messages are directed only over those links in a network required to achieve delivery, thereby limiting the number of devices on the network that actually receive the messages to a minimum. Unicast allows a single user to personalize receiving data on the fly. Web browsing to a particular streamed media clip is an example of unicasting.
Multicast as used herein refers to transmitting information packets addressed to a range of receivers. Multicast is typically implemented on an otherwise unicast-based network using network addressing methods for the delivery of information to a group of destinations simultaneously. Multicast methods strive for efficiency through delivering the messages over each link of the network only once, creating copies only when the links to the multiple destinations split, typically at network switches and routers. Multicast is often used for streaming media and Internet television applications where the media is streamed to all requesting users in the same time frame. An example is a group selecting to receive streaming video of a live performance or sports contest.
Broadcast as used herein refers to transmitting information, which in some but not all instances can be packetized, to all units capable of receiving the transmission without distinction. Over-the-air television and radio are particular examples of broadcast networks. For example, everybody tuned to channel 8 receives the same signal at the same time with the transmission time chosen by the broadcaster rather than the user. Broadcast networks are usually physically separate from unicast based networks as, generally, one-to-many transmissions of data is not efficient on a unicast based network. Broadcast networks are also generally thought of as being one-way communication paths.
With respect to the distribution of secondary content, content providers are highly interested in providing targeted media content to users of wireless devices. Targeted media refers to media content, such as advertisements, delivered to wireless devices of those users which have (or should have) an interest in the media content. Targeted content delivery has, in many instances, involved centrally acquiring and analyzing user profile data and/or user usage behavior data to determine which media content would interest the user. The targeted media content is then bundled and sent to the wireless device of the user.
Targeting media content is generally complex, in terms of communication requirements, in that it requires multiple and persistent communications from the wireless device to a server to accumulate and update the user profile and/or usage behavior files. Additionally, targeted media content delivery tends to be costly requiring additional software, a large amount of back-end servers to store user profiles and/or usage behavior data, and the use of more network resources for delivering the targeted content. In addition to complexity and cost concerns, privacy issues are of concern because users of wireless devices may not desire to have the content service providers maintain active profiles of the user and/or the user's usage behavior.
Therefore, a need exists to develop a method for enhancing the presentation of the secondary content so as to engage the user to interact with the secondary content, and thereby gather information corresponding to the interaction to further optimize targeting of the secondary content.